Background Multi-country studies assessing the quality of maternal and newborn care (QMNC) during the COVID-19 pandemic, as defined by WHO Standards, are lacking. Methods Women who gave birth in 12 countries of the WHO European Region from March 1, 2020 - March 15, 2021 answered an online questionnaire, including 40 WHO Standard-based Quality Measures. Findings 21,027 mothers were included in the analysis. Among those who experienced labour (N=18,063), 41·8% (26·1%- 63·5%) experienced difficulties in accessing antenatal care, 62% (12·6%-99·0%) were not allowed a companion of choice, 31·1% (16·5%-56·9%) received inadequate breastfeeding support, 34·4% (5·2%-64·8%) reported that health workers were not always using protective personal equipment, and 31·8% (17·8%-53·1%) rated the health workers’ number as “insufficient”. Episiotomy was performed in 20·1% (6·1%-66·0%) of spontaneous vaginal births and fundal pressure applied in 41·2% (11·5% -100%) of instrumental vaginal births. In addition, 23·9% women felt they were not treated with dignity (12·8%-59·8%), 12·5% (7·0%-23·4%) suffered abuse, and 2·4% (0·1%-26·2%) made informal payments. Most findings were significantly worse among women with prelabour caesarean birth (N=2,964). Multivariate analyses confirmed significant differences among countries, with Croatia, Romania, Serbia showing significant lower QMNC Indexes and Luxemburg showing a significantly higher QMNC Index than the total sample. Younger women and those with operative births also reported significantly lower QMNC Indexes. Interpretation Mothers reports revealed large inequities in QMNC across countries of the WHO European Region. Quality improvement initiatives to reduce these inequities and promote evidence-based, patient-centred respectful care for all mothers and newborns during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond are urgently needed. Funding The study was financially supported by the Institute for Maternal and Child Health IRCCS Burlo Garofolo, Trieste, Italy. Study registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04847336

Inflammation associated with cancer, neurodegenerative, ocular, and autoimmune diseases has a considerable impact on public health. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) is a key mediator of inflammatory responses, responsible for many of the systemic manifestations during the inflammatory process. Thus, inhibition of TNFα is a commonplace practice in the treatment of these disorders. Successful therapy requires the ability to determine the appropriate dose of anti-TNFα drugs to be administered in a timely manner, based on circulating TNFα levels. In this Letter, we report the development of an immunosensor technology able to quantify TNFα at the picogram level in relevant human body fluids, holding the potential to early detect inflammation and monitor TNFα levels during treatment, enabling TNFα-targeted treatments to be tailored according to the immune status of an individual patient. This immunosensor technology is significantly more rapid and sensitive than conventional enzyme linked immunosorbent assays, maintaining high specificity and requiring small sample volumes. These features might also be advantageous in the context of personalized medicine, as this analytical platform can deliver advanced diagnostics and reduce clinical burden.

Original scientific paper https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI171231273TThe aim of this work is the redesign of the reflector geometry in hybrid concentrating collectors that are currently manufactured by SOLARUS Sunpower AB ** to improve the energy efficiency of their solar collectors. The analysis is first accomplished using a numerical model that uses geometrical optics to study the interaction between the sunlight and a concentrating collector along the year. More complex physical models based on open-source and advanced objectoriented Monte Carlo ray tracing programs (SolTrace, Tonatiuh) have been used to study the relation between the collector annual performance and its geometry. On an annual performance basis, a comparative analysis between several solar collector geometries was effectuated to search for higher efficiencies but with controlled costs. Results show that efficiency is deeply influenced by reflector geometry details, collector tilt and location (latitude, longitude) of the solar panel installation and, mostly, by costumer demands. Undoubtedly, the methodology presented in this paper for the design of the solar collector represents an important tool to optimize the binomial cost/effectiveness photovoltaic performance in the energy conversion process. The results also indicate that some modified concentrating solar collectors are promising when evaluating the yearly averaged energy produced per unit area, leading to evident improvements in the performance when compared to the current standard solar concentrating SOLARUS systems. Increases of about 50% (from 0.123 kW/m 2 to 0.1832 kW/m 2 ) were obtained for the yearly average collected power per reflector area when decreasing the collector height in 3.5% (from 143 mm to 138 mm). ability of future generations to meet their own needs * [1]. Apart from the social aspects, the two other pillars of sustainability currently referred to are environmental and economic features. The former has enhanced the RES, the economic aspects deal with the energy efficiency. Among the most used alternatives within renewable energies, solar energy plays a fundamental role.In the last few years, the costs of photovoltaic (PV) modules have dropped rapidly benefitting from technical improvements. Taking into account that the solar cells prices are still responsible for a great percentage of the overall costs related to conversion energy system, different techniques have been implemented to increase the solar energy production without the use of more solar cells. Example of this is the inclusion of reflector concentrators in the concentrating PV-thermal (C-PVT) collector to increase the solar irradiance in the solar cells [2,3]. This may have a higher importance in world regions where the average irradiation is low. However, concentrators present some drawbacks, namely a decrease in the conversion efficiency, related to a partial absorption of the incident radiation by the reflector, and a reduction in the reflectivity features, related to dirt or aging [4,5]. Additionally, the...